


Awake

by orphan_account



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-11
Updated: 2012-10-11
Packaged: 2017-11-16 02:30:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/534493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Sora awakes, Riku finds his purpose again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Awake

**Author's Note:**

> Written ages ago. Putting it back up. Set pre-KH 2, and one of my earlier KH fics.

Riku sees the boy for the first time.

The stranger has wild, brown hair. Riku wonders how someone can possibly feel all right, walking around with such hair. Then he sighs briefly, remembering his own; he isn't better either, for It's not straight or his own hair is definitely a lot longer than the boy's. Still – at least he keeps his decent. smooth, but it's also not such a jungle as the boy's.

He also wears clothes that appear weird to Riku; he cannot tell why, but it's just... weird. Everything about that boy is weird. From the young, open face that's starting to sharpen as he grows; the thin arms and legs, from the shoes to the chain around his neck, to the hands, the ears. Everything, everything is strange about the boy.

Riku doesn't know why. It's just the way it is.

He stares another moment at the boy, then he turns around with a shrug of his shoulders. It's nothing special; Riku should better find out where he is. Nothing else is of importance.

As he leaves the room, he doesn't notice the sting in his chest.

-

Two days later, Riku finds himself back in front of the boy's pod.

He doesn't know why. Maybe it's because he's got nothing to do. He knows where he is: Twilight Town, yeah, but that doesn't bring him any further. Something in him desperately wants to go home and that again reminds him of sand and water and sunlight, but every time he tries to recall other things, the memories fade, and everything's black.

Home: something tells him that someone's waiting for him, someone, someone important. Still, Riku can't remember.

This is why he comes to the boy.

The boy's asleep. He's quiet. He doesn't move a single centimetre. Not even his eyelashes flutter. Riku can see through the pod, even though the material the pod is made of is metally-white. Others cannot look through the material. Neither this blonde girl – Naminé, wasn't it? - nor the man that brought Riku here. DiZ? Yeah, the name was DiZ. The two can't look through it, they can't see the boy, but Riku can. It's strange. Just like the boy.

It's so quiet in the room. The boy doesn't breathe, or, he doesn't look like he does. It's so, so still. Calm. Peaceful.

Riku sits down with his back against the pod, lets his arms fall loosely onto the ground, and he inhales sharply through his nose, then exhales.

Somehow, he's so incredibly tired. He'd like to sleep, like the caged boy (maybe without waking up, somehow that's a pleasant thought), but he knows he can't. He mustn't. He doesn't know why, once again, but his heart tells him he mustn't.

-

DiZ rarely talks to him. He and Riku don't see each other that often, but Riku doesn't mind. Riku is busy with his own thoughts. Where is he? When can he go back home? Who is that, the someone waiting for him at home? Where, actually, is his home? Why is he here?

And who's that boy?

DiZ doesn't tell him. Riku dismisses it with a careless wave of his hand, but he can't stop thinking about that boy.

As if he's the answer to all of his questions.

As though he's the key.

-

Riku tries to distract himself. He talks to Naminé – asks her where she is from. She says she doesn't know. He looks into her blue eyes while she answers, and the scene feels vaguely familiar

(a scattered dream that's like a far-off memory.  
a far-off memory that's like a scattered dream.)

and Riku feels his palms itch. To think that out there are still undiscovered worlds, unknown places that only wait to be explored: an endless horizon, under the blue, blue sky, away of the water, of the earth: up into the sky, that's where he wants to go. Or maybe, where once he wanted to go. He doesn't know any more.

Riku forgot a lot of things. He still doesn't know why he's here.

-

The boy doesn't give him any answers. He sleeps, and ignores Riku.

Riku feels oddly hurt, for don't they have things in common? Somehow they both are unknowing shells. Both somehow... empty. Riku is sure they'd both be able to help each other. Both could give answers the other seeks.

Riku dreams that night. In his dream he's standing in front of the pod, he's hammering with his hands against it, he wants to wake up the boy. He needs to. But the boy doesn't wake up, doesn't react. For a moment Riku thinks he's dead -

and he wakes up crying, and can't remember the dream. He feels so lonely, and empty. He doesn't know why he's here. He has no purpose. He's nothing but a shell, without a past, without a future, without anything. He's nothing.

Nothing, nothing, nothing, and the darkness creeps closer, tries to swallow him.

Riku flees to the silent room, comes to a halt in front of the pod, and slowly he calms down. He feels slumber overwhelming him, and he sinks to the floor. A last glance at the boy makes him smile, and he falls asleep with warmth in his chest.

-

DiZ tells him he needs to find someone called Roxas if he wants the boy to wake up. Riku's astounded, but he doesn't question it: that the boy should wake up – so he isn't lost in there, or, even, dead? (Riku's relieved.)

Roxas. Riku lets the name melt on his tongue, and he needs a moment to adjust. Roxas. He's supposed to find Roxas, he has to. Riku doesn't know what will await him, but be the toll what it is. He has to, he can't not. He has to find Roxas, Roxas with the keyblade.

...Keyblade? Where did that come from? What's a -

“And so he'll wake up?” Riku asks. He feels a strange pressure in his chest. “So Sora will wake up?”

Sora?

“I see, you begin to remember,” DiZ says with a quiet chuckle, leaning back in his chair. “It's about time.”

Riku doesn't understand the words. Riku doesn't understand anything at all.

All he knows, and somehow he understands it, that it's inevitable that he is to do it, he understands the necessity of the situation without comprehending why -

but, he needs to find Roxas.

(Who is Sora?)

-

He remembers. Everything. Everything comes back to him.

Piece for piece. Piece for piece, the memories return.

His home: destiny islands. Who's waiting for him there: Kairi. He mustn't let Kairi wait for so long, otherwise she'll feel lonely. But he's sure she's all right.

Riku remembers everything.

Piece for piece he remembers, piece for piece his insecurity and self-hatred (and guilt, guilt, guilt) come back. He doesn't look at himself any more. He's asleep by day, and awake in the night. He doesn't want to be seen. He can't bear seeing himself.

The darkness is now his friend, now there is nobody left.

Everything he has to do is waking up So-... no, is waking up the boy.

(He doesn't deserve to say the name.)

So he looks for Roxas.

-

Riku kneels in front of the pod; he can't raise his head.

He found Roxas. (Blue eyes.) They fought. (The boy, he has blue eyes.) Roxas won. (How could he forget?) Roxas bore the keyblade.

Riku defeated Roxas, in the end.

Riku isn't Riku any more; has maybe never been. He's – someone else, now. His eyes are a yellowish orange, his face is remarkably longer and thinner, and his hair is longer too. His fingers are thin and long, like claws.

Riku kneels in front of the pod, and hot tears slide down his cheeks; he's unaware of it. He wants to be sick. He doesn't know what he's doing, or what he should do. He's empty. He's foul, disgusting. He's dark. He's hatred. He's envy. He's everything, everything but what he wants to be.

Sora isn't awake. Sora isn't here, isn't by his side.

Riku doesn't raise his head to look at him, though he wants to. Though he needs to: seeing Sora would calm him down. Sora would – would -

He can't look at him. Not with this eyes. Not with what he has become.

Riku pulls down the hood, over his face, and once more darkness engulfs him. He straightens, and leaves the room without looking back, his eyes dry and cheeks wet.

-

The memories are back, and with them, the hurt.

He remembers the blue-eyed, happy boy that always used to romp about with him; he remembers himself, young and ignorant, but with a heart bursting of happiness at the side of the small boy. The blue-eyed boy that's his first memory ever.

Then he remembers the day the girl had come. He remembers the way Sora's eyes had lightened up when they'd seen each other, every single time. Riku had understood: Sora had liked her. It had been OK.

At least, Riku had thought so.

He'd liked the girl too. She'd been nice, happy and funny: much more fun to be around than Selphie, and she'd gone along with his and Sora's monkeyshines.

The only problem had been that she was between him and Sora.

Or maybe, Riku himself had been the problem.

-

Riku doesn't go back to the room. He doesn't spend his nights in front of the pod any longer. Doesn't watch the boy any more. He doesn't look into the mirror any more. He's stopped wondering if he would ever go back.

Instead, he trains and fights. He becomes stronger, to prepare for the day when the boy will awake. He would protect him.

(He also watches Roxas. It's his duty: DiZ told him they'd need to keep an eye on him. But Riku has learned to stop hiding behind lies. He has learned to accept his own darkness – or, at least, to not ignore it any more.

He watches Roxas because he wants to. Roxas is a poor creature – he should never have existed. He's heartless, even if he laughs with his friends and looks thoughtful, even sad, once he finds himself trapped in another memory sent by Naminé. Riku can understand Roxas: he's just as heartless.

He watches Roxas to see those eyes. To see these blue, blue eyes.)

-

As Sora awakes, Riku's heart is beating madly.

As Sora awakes, Riku allows himself for the first time in a whole year, to smile. To smile quietly into the darkness without feeling guilty. Just... smiling, and... feeling peaceful.

As Sora awakes, Riku finds his purpose again.


End file.
